You Can't Defend What You Don't Know

This afternoon my dad texted me. He was upset over an encounter with a neighbor who made a disparaging remark about non-Catholics not being able to receive the Eucharist at Mass. My dad got a little defensive (understandably, given the tone of the neighbor's complaint) and felt he had made things worse and strained the relationship. I suspect he was offended, wanted to defend the Faith, but was on shaky ground with how to go about doing it. His getting upset was compounded by not feeling confident in being able to explain why the Church teaches against intercommunion, getting flustered, and going away feeling that things were made worse after the encounter.

This isn't an uncommon scenario. We need both heart and head when it comes to apologetics. In my experience, the less knowledge about the faith one possesses, the more fervently they tend to argue, assuming they care and have the heart. When you know you're on a firm foundation in terms of apologetics, you don't get your blood pressure up, but let sound argument carry their own weight as you serve it up calmly and politely.

I know enough about the basics of my faith to enter into reasonable discussion without feeling like I'm on an episode of American Gladiators. And I have evangelized enough to know when to fight and when not to take things personally (which is most of the time). But I've also spent twenty years living, breathing, and learning the Faith, so I feel relatively confident there (though there's always more to learn!). It's not enough to be right. How you deliver the message, as well as its content, is just as important.

We need both head and heart. Wisdom and understanding (the head) comes to us by grace and study; thankfully, the Catholic faith is a reasonable faith, one which we can understand with our reason and intellect, while retaining the refreshment of mystery. Zeal and humility (the heart) also is a gift of grace. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6), and faith is strengthened in prayer, which is also essential to "heart knowledge."

I did end up telling my dad not to let this encounter steal his peace of mind and not to dwell on it too much, but use it as an opportunity to learn more about his faith so that the next encounter might be different. Catholic Answers is a great and invaluable resource that is easily accessible online to learn the Faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is another, which is also available online on the Vatican's website. It doesn't cost anything to learn, and it's accessible from any computer. And many parishes also offer adult faith formation classes which can be valuable as well. The hardest part, sometimes, is not the learning, but coming to a place in which one desires to learn. Once you have that, the learning takes care of itself.

But we also need to be people of regular prayer. Prayer roots us, gives us a firm foundation on which to stand, and a place of peace from which to instruct and inform. We don't eat once a week, why should we pray just once a week? Angry apologetics, like a disgruntled combox, doesn't do anyone any good and just leaves everyone feeling downcast and offended. All the head knowledge in the world is worthless without prayer.

You can't defend what you don't know. And the way we know is by taking the time and making the effort to learn. There will always be people ignorant of the Truth, but we should see it more as opportunities to instruct when given the invitation to do so; always with charity, always with love. As Ven. Fulton Sheed wisely noted, "Win an argument, lose a soul." Don't lose a soul.